Shower From Hell
by katrinawritesstuff
Summary: Tina Hellman has many frustrations: Personal, professional, neighbourial. Chapter 1 of 2, rated M for the latter. Has the dubious distinction of being the only Neighbors From Hell fic here.


_A/N: I...am really at a loss to explain how this fic came about. I watched this show a few years ago, and what can I say? I loved the character designs, the overall concept, and the character's personalities, but the writing...ugh. Let's just say I can see why this program was shit-canned after only one season (a note to Neighbors From Hell writers: Sexual harassment is one of those things that's really hard to make funny, and it doesn't magically become funny when it's a woman doing it to a man. It's mostly just uncomfortable and gross. Here's a rule of thumb: if you reversed the genders, and had a man harassing a woman, would his over-the-top harassment of her be witty and hilarious? Or would it just be misogynist and icky? If it's the latter, then nope, sorry, not funny when it's a woman harassing a man either. Jane Lynch deserved so much better than that.) There are myriad other problems with the show (lazy writing, over-reliance on easy visual gags and gross-out humour, a Family Guy-esque obsession with using pop culture references in the place of actual jokes, etc.) but I think that'll do for now. Let's just say I was a bit disappointed with the source material. Those awesome character designs deserved better writing, dammit! _

_Now, back to the story: it contains a shower! And scat, and piss. But not in this chapter, so you're safe for now (this chapter's actually kinda boring. Don't worry; it gets better, I promise. I hope)._

_Please no reviews telling me I'm nuts. That's not a review, that's a psychological assessment, and I have my therapist for that. _

_I don't own these gorgeous little weirdos. They're property of Pam Brady. _

"**Shower From Hell"**

"Well honey, I'm off to work! Better split or else Killbride will blow a gasket. Later. Love you!" In the blink of an eye, Balthazor had materialised in front of the breakfast bar, snatched his lunchbag from off the counter, and then hightailed off up the hall, without so much as a single goodbye kiss to his beloved wife before his whirlwind departure.

Tina Hellman stood stiffly behind the breakfast bar clutching her martini, nostrils flaring as she glowered irately at the spot where her husband just stood. _"Balty,"_ she spat furiously.

The rage in her voice caused her husband to do an abrupt about-face. A split second later his head appeared in the doorway, his raised eyebrows innocent and unassuming. "Yes, hon bun?"

Her expression softened. "Don't I get a goodbye kiss?"

"Oh!" he exclaimed sheepishly, his eyes widening in apology. "Sure ya do, my little sulphur cupcake! C'mere."

Tina rushed up to her husband eagerly. Much to her dismay, Balthazor simply leaned in and smacked his lips perfunctorily against hers, then shot her a quick grin over his shoulder as he made a speedy exit. She watched his retreating back, crestfallen.

"Well, _that_ was disappointing," she muttered aloud to herself as she settled onto one of the stools. "About as erotic as a hole-puncher piercing paper." She took a dejected sip of her martini. "At least _that _action has a little 'oomph' to it."

Lately, 'oomph' was their relationship's missing ingredient. Oh, Balthazor was perfectly kind and pleasant; they rarely fought; and their interactions were always calm, rational, and civilised. And it was slowly driving her crazy! All this superficial 'pleasantness' humans seemed so wedded to, this pathetic enslavement to a set of superfluous and entirely arbitrary rules cooked up by their social superiors, whose idea of fucking was probably to bump uglies with as little contact as she and her husband had bumped lips. Was it any wonder humans had so many marital problems? Or that her relationship with Balty suddenly lacked a certain…_tension_ here on Earth? Really, how was _anyone_ supposed to have any fun in a place where the rules were just so darn _oppressive?_ Here on the surface, she couldn't practice her vice grip on her husband's crotch if he was pissing her off in public, or grab a fistful of his hair, jerk his head back and spit in his mouth if he was saying something she didn't like. Folks would definitely be scandalised if she asked Balty to smack her around in the checkout line at the grocery store, and she couldn't even _begin_ to imagine how they'd react if she goaded him into stabbing a fork in her breast while they were enjoying a romantic dinner at a posh restaurant (which, incidentally, was exactly what had happened on their third anniversary outing down in Hell. She smiled nostalgically. Yeah, that one had been a real sheet-scorcher).

Alas, in the human world, such overt sexual aggression was largely confined to the bedroom (and even there, it was pretty damn tame by Hell standards). The only 'humans', and Tina used the term loosely given their demonic proclivities, who she'd ever seen behave that way in public were Balty's boss, Don Killbride (who, at a recent soiree she and Balthazor attended, had paused the conversation—self-aggrandising monologue, really—at regular intervals to fence tongues with the teenage escort on the end of his arm), and Marjoe St. Sparks (an insipid Southern belle with a penchant for pooch cooch).

Ugh_. Marjoe_. Tina shuddered involuntarily at the thought of her nemesis. Hell had a special place for bestialists like her. It was over in B Division, if she recalled correctly. Humans who 'had relations' with their four-legged friends were sometimes sent there as stand-ins for tired demons, who'd grown fatigued from punishment-fucking Hell's considerable supply of evil animals over in the Augean (orgyin'?) stables. Not that they'd send _her_ there, mind you. No, being a stable-hand in Hell was for one-time offenders only, typically humans who'd been coerced by friends into fellating a horse or fingering a dog's asshole in their youth, and who'd subsequently become traumatised by the event. In other words, people who wouldn't actually _enjoy_ what they were doing. Marjoe didn't fit the bill. No, to _that _depraved harlot, a Tijuana pony show was probably akin to Sunday brunch. Tina shuddered again.

"Hi Mom! It's a _beautiful _morning, isn't it? Well, can't talk, off to school, byyye!" her daughter chirped, sashaying over to the counter, grabbing her lunch and waving an airy goodbye as she floated off into the hall.

This suspiciously-upbeat greeting startled Tina from her reverie. Her Mother's Intuition kicked in; something was up. Mandy didn't 'chirp.'

Tina set down her drink, climbed off the stool and folded her arms across her chest. _"Hold it right there, young lady." _

At the sound of her mother's command, Mandy pivoted in the hall's entrance and treated the Hellman Matriarch to the usual exasperated teenage eye-rolling to which Tina had grown accustomed. _Well, that's more like it,_ Tina thought sourly. _At least I know she hasn't been possessed by the spirit of the pep squad, or whatever humans call those manic pom-pom waving She-Demons. _

"_What,_ Mom? Whatever it is you wanna berate me over, can't it wait 'til after school? I'm kind of in a rush." _Aww, she looks so cute when she's angry. Just like when she was little. _

No. Maternal sentimentality could wait. Now she was playing Mama Detective. "I've noticed you seem unusually…_perky_ lately," Tina ventured, narrowing her eyes and arching a sceptical eyebrow. "Is something up?"

"Of _course not,_ Mom!" Mandy replied quickly, flashing her mother a slightly manic grin. "Everything's just peachy!"

At _this_ bizarre response, Tina's eyebrow seesawed even higher and Mandy, noticing her mother's expression, caught herself.

"Oh, uh, I mean_, pffft,_ _no._ Get _bent,_ Mom. The whole world sucks as much as it always has," she said bitterly, with a sudden downcast look at her shoes that seemed to Tina to be just a little bit too rehearsed. What was going _on_ with her, anyway?

Tina felt another intuitive lurch in her gut, insistent as a small foetal kick. _Maybe I should strive for compassion rather than criticism,_ she thought guiltily_. Satan knows that girl can be inscrutable when she's ticked off. Anyway, if I do the Nice Mom Thing, she might open up to me. _

She allowed her hard look to be smoothed over by motherly concern. "Mandy honey," she said gently, wandering over and tenderly brushing her daughter's bangs out of her eyes, "you _know_ you can always come to me with your problems…right?"

Mandy suddenly met her mother's gaze. Her expression was wistful and sincere, and for a brief moment Tina thought she might actually open up about whatever was bugging her. Then, in a flash, Mandy's mouth gave a cynical twist, and her eyes returned to her feet. "Whatever," she muttered quietly. "Yeah-cool." Then, impatiently, locking eyes with her mother again, "Can I please _go_ now?"

Tina sighed audibly. "Fine. Off ya go then, scamp."

She waited for Mandy's inevitable snarky rejoinder: _"Ugh, don't you think I'm a little __**old**__ for that stupid nickname? __**Seriously,**__ Mom." _But Mandy had pushed past her and was now standing over by the breakfast bar, her eyes surveying the two identical plastic water bottles in front of her with a look of worried uncertainty.

"Something wrong?" Tina couldn't help it; her eyebrow did the Sceptical-Mom Seesaw Thing again.

"Nope. I'm cool." Mandy blew aside her wayward bangs and tried to look nonchalant. Tina noticed she still hadn't reached for either of the water bottles yet.

"You planning on taking one of those to school, hon?" Tina asked, now a bit bemused at her daughter's indecision. Why did it matter which bottle she took? They were both just _water,_ weren't they?

"Uh, sure. Just watch me!" With a swift assuredness that belied the tiny anxiety crease in her brow, Mandy snatched up the left bottle and shoved it hurriedly into the front pouch of her schoolbag. Then, as if she had something to prove, straightened her back, titled her chin, and regarded her mother imperiously from beneath half-lowered lids as if to say, _"See? There's nothing suspicious __**at all**__ about the way I've been standing here nervously eyeing two perfectly normal bottles of Evian like they were the holy water in which J****s himself was baptised, recoiling violently as if at any minute the Son of G*d was going to materialise right here in this very room and tip them over me, thus causing me to disintegrate into a pile of sulphur ash with horns on top. Nope, nothing remotely strange about __**this**__ behaviour at all!" _(FYI, the phrase 'recoiling violently from [insert reviled object here] as if it were Holy Water' was something of a joke down in Hell. Everyone knew the whole Holy-Water-As-Demon-Kryptonite thing was just a fairytale grown-ups used to scare young demons straight. Most Devilspawn weren't scared of the Church waterplate at all; hell, the little suckers were often potty-trained over 'em!)

Tina's stomach sank as she watched her daughter leave. She sighed and dropped wearily back onto the stool. Satan help her. First Balty, now Mandy. How had she suddenly become so estranged from every member in her family? Balthazor had tried to convince her that being a stay-at-home-mom would mean _more_ family-time, not less. And yet, it seemed like she was less emotionally connected with her loved ones now than ever. She couldn't even take solace in her high-powered career anymore, because here on Earth she didn't have one. Women less ambitious than she had tried to dignify her new role with a variety of turd-polishing euphemisms: "SAHM", "home-maker", "primary care-giver." But in Tina's darkest heart of hearts, she felt an older, less-flattering term rang closer to the truth: she was a housewife. And now, deprived of both a satisfying family life AND a rewarding career, she felt she was slowly starting to come unravelled.

As Tina battled contradictory feelings about this maddeningly female dilemma (correction: maddeningly _human_ female dilemma!), her thoughts were interrupted by a frighteningly loud series of _thunk-thunk-thunk _noises that sounded like they were coming from inside the refrigerator. _Oh, Beelzebub's beard,_ she thought in agitation, _What __**now?**_ She immediately got up and raced over to the fridge, her heart pounding.

Tina hesitated as she reached for the handle. Did she really want to see what was in there? The last time something like this happened, poor Balty had nearly got his head bitten off by a bowl of man-eating Jell-O courtesy of Uncle Vlaatark (and not the one on his neck, either. Just _awful._ It was the most agonising and sexless three months they'd ever endured as a couple). If this was another case of carnivorous confectionary, she really didn't wanna know about it.

Tina bit her lower lip nervously and braced herself as she pulled open the door. The culprit was immediately apparent: right there on the fourth shelf, flapping its lone featherless wing as it crashed into one wall and then ricocheted right back off the other, sliding merrily to and fro like a hockey puck, was last night's chicken. Maybe it was her imagination, but the bird suddenly seemed a little less, well, _dead_ than it had the previous evening.

Eventually, the chicken seemed to realise—well, inasmuch as re-animated poultry can 'realise' something—that it was going nowhere fast with all this side-to-side business. Suddenly, before Tina had time to put a stop to it, the chicken abruptly launched itself forward, flapping its feeble stump-wing for a glorious airborne second before crashing with a disconcerting _thwock _on the kitchen floor. A couple of mustard jars and a bottle of Tabasco sauce tumbled down with it. They hit the tiles and shattered instantly, spilling their contents across the tips of Tina's new heels.

_Well, it's a been a __**super**__ start to the morning so far,_ Tina thought sourly, as she watched the chicken prop itself up on its pathetic wing, climb to a shaky standing position on its lone drumstick leg, and proceed to hastily wobble-hop off in the direction of the hall.

"Jo-osh!" she yelled irritably, "have you been practising necromancy on the leftovers again!?"

Her son ambled through the doorway with his schoolbag hanging off one shoulder, and blinked slowly as a vapid front clouded his expression. "Uhhhhhhhhh...nope," he lied, in the wholly unconvincing, morally-conflicted way that Tina liked to think came Balthazor's side of the family.

Tina narrowed her eyes and glared stonily at Josh as the evidence hopped right past him, leaving a trail of stuffing in its wake as it bounded off in the direction of the lounge. Josh followed his mother's gaze. The chicken had fallen over and was now flopping about helplessly on its belly, more fish than fowl.

Josh shrugged his shoulders. "Wasn't me."

Tina rolled her eyes. "Uh-huh. Give it _up,_ kid. Mama sees through your lies. Let me see if I have this straight: The chicken we ate for last night's dinner somehow miraculously just came back to life and tried to fly the coop _all on its own,_ and even though you're the only one in this family who's _at all_ familiar with necromancy, you honestly expect me to believe _you _had nothing to do with it?"

Josh averted his eyes as his mouth twisted into an ashamed grimace. "Okay," he muttered quietly, gaze fixed squarely on his shoes. "It was me. Not very convincing, was I? Sorry, Mom."

_Oh, fuck it._ The way he said 'Mom' combined with that sad hollow-eyed little-boy look won her over every time. Tina reached out and playfully ruffled Josh's oil-spill black hair, rank and creature-infested as his father's. "No sweat," she said affectionately, playfully grazing his cheek with her fist. "Just make sure you try a bit harder next time, alrighty?"

"Right, Mom."

"Awww. _C'mere,_ you." Mandy enfolded her son in her arms and squeezed him tightly. _At least __**some**__ family members are still willing to be close to me,_ she thought sadly as she inhaled Josh's boy-scent of sweat and gym-socks for a motherly endorphin-rush.

Speaking of _some family members_...the house had been a bit quiet this morning. _Too_ quiet. Tina frowned suddenly. "Josh," she began uneasily, "where are Vlaatark and Pazuzu?"

"Oh, Uncle V's just gone to get his finger examined at the doctor's," Josh replied, shrugging out of his mother's arms and heading toward the hall. "Pazuzu went with."

_Geeze, that fucking finger._ Tina remembered with stomach-churning clarity how it got that way: Vlaatark had recently picked up a new lady-friend at some urine-yodelling convention (or was it a blood orgy? Scat-wrestling match? Whatever, it was Vlaatark) and consequently decided to avail himself of a chemical-based erection-facilitator (translation: Viagra) for later that evening. Unfortunately, her brother had been unaware that impotency drugs for humans have an entirely different effect on demons. Said effect was that the body parts that became rigid weren't necessarily located in the South-navel region. In Vlaatark's case, ingesting this drug had caused his middle finger to suddenly and inexplicably harden and extend, in such a way that it was virtually impossible to put the thing down again without breaking bones. Tina embarrassingly recalled a recent episode in which Vlaatark had been waiting idly at the bus stop, when a boy of about elevenish beside him had noticed his finger. "Say," the boy growled menacingly, "are you giving me the finger, old man?" Vlaatark had emitted an agonised wail. "Ohhhh, young man!" he'd sobbed, "if only you knew! I would much prefer to be giving you my penis!" Yeah, _that one_ had been a ball to explain to the cops.

Tina heaved an unhappy sigh. She was now the only one left in the house. She wondered if she should perform some typical 'housewifely' duties, like making potpourri out of the bowl of Puke-Flakes that had been sitting out on the small glass coffee-table in the lounge for the past three weeks, or maybe taking a throat lozenge and practising her sword-swallowing skills for when Balty came home and needed a little, ahhh, deep relief. One of those was definitely doable. If only she could remember where she put that damn samurai sword.

Why the fuck was she still standing there?

This bone-idleness wouldn't do at all. She needed to just get off her ass and get herself started on something. She needed motivation. She needed discipline.

She needed alcohol.

Tina frantically threw open the fridge, searching for anything: wine, whiskey, vodka, beer, scotch, tequila, rubbing alcohol, _anything!_

Nada. The fridge was booze-free.

Her anxiety rapidly increasing, Tina checked the pantry, all the cupboards under the sink, and even beneath Pazuzu's fake doggie dish.

Nothing. The entire _house_ was alcohol-free.

A sob pressed against her throat. Tina sank down onto the floor, hugging her knees close to her chest and rocking slowly backwards and forwards. She realised she couldn't stay like this all day, although the thought sure was nice. She needed a plan of attack.

_The liquor store. Yes! I can visit the liquor store! I'll just get up, walk out of the house, get into my car and drive down there right now! _

Tina got to her feet, sprinted through the kitchen and made a beeline for the sliding door at the side of the house.

When Tina reached the door, she froze.

_Oh, no. No, no, no, no, NO, not now, PLEASE NOT NOW!_

Marjoe was grinning maniacally at her from behind the glass. A depressed-looking Champers was tucked under her arm, and appeared to be attempting to choke himself with the strap of his owner's handbag. Tina knew how he felt.

There was something unusual hanging out of one of Marjoe's pant pockets. Tina squinted hard until she could finally make out what it was.

Oh. An enema bag.

Tina stared at the ground and said a short prayer: "Dear Satan, if you kill me now I PROMISE to be a better wife and mother and lover, and to ALWAYS do your bidding, Oh Dark Lord..."

It was going to be okay. She'd recited the prayer once; now, only 665 more times to go...


End file.
